I mentioned research published by Professor Danny Dorling in an earlier post last week. One of his colleagues, Professor Nicky Gregson, who also happened to be my university tutor, has conducted extensive studies into the social phenomenon of the car boot sale. Having just been to the Chelford car boot I thought it might be of interest to post up some of her research findings – especially as over a million people enjoy haggling and finding curious, useful and sometimes (in)valuable items at car boot sales every weekend.

Professor Gregson was one of the first people to do academic research into these events, exploring the car boot as marginal spaces of contemporary consumption. Her various studies were conducted alongside Louise Crewe of Nottingham University and you can see abstracts from their research papers here, here and here.

Their research found that the most popular buys were children’s clothes. Items bought to “sell on” included clothes and equipment for babies, videos, kitchen utensils and DIY tools. The maximum number of purchases by a consumer recorded was 94 and the most spent was £100. Far from being the poor and unemployed, 40 per cent of buyers were employed; 16 per cent in part-time work and 21 per cent retired. Two-thirds of the comsumers surveyed were aged 25-55 and men and women were found to be fairly evenly represented at the sales. Women typically bought and sold children’s clothes, toys, ornaments and household goods with men showing greater interest in things such as DIY equipment, gardening tools and car accessories and parts.

You can find out more about Gregson’s recent research into ‘Disposal, Devaluation and Consumerism’ here.

And if you’re looking for a car boot near you, visit www.carbootjunction.com.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 3:08 pm and is filed under EVENTS & PASTIMES, RESEARCH. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.